By Rupert Howell

Sardis Lake spillway has produced a lot of fish and Sunday it produced a state record freshwater drum at the hands of angler Bryan Christian of Batesville.

The fish’s official weight on the certified scales at Batesville’s UPS Store on Tuesday was 29.85 pounds beating the current record by over two pounds according to Mississippi Dept. of Wildlife Fisheries and Parks biologist Keith Mills.

Christian said he and Buck Hardin at Wallace Bait Shop weighed the fish after it was caught Sunday when it weighed approximately 31 pounds.

By the time Mills and Christian could get together at a certified scale Tuesday morning the fish had lost weight but Mills was sure that once Christian’s paperwork is processed, he will still hold the new record.

Christian fishes a lot and often he’s fishing at Sardis spillway.

“I had caught about 15 or 20, six to eight inch crappie,” Christian said before he went to back of his truck and got his bass rig explaining, “I ran out of minnows.”

No bait, no problem.

Christian often fishes for crappie and catfish at the spillway so after retrieving his bass rig from his truck he, “. . .picked up a (dead) shad off the ground and put it on the hook and went to catfishing,” with his 7-1/2 foot worm rod with a bass set up.

He explained that he caught no catfish that day, but he caught four drums weighing from 5-15 pounds. He gave them to a fellow nearby before he hooked another fish and this one was bigger.

He was fishing near the steps as close as he could get to the spillway and the only current being made by the slight trickle coming from the closed structure.

He first thought he had hooked a large flathead catfish, which is what he was fishing for.

 “It stayed where I hooked him for four for five minutes,” Christian said noting that it took about 15 minutes to land the record drum.

“Everybody started coming over to me,” he said explaining that others nearby familiar with fishing the spillway knew by his movements that he had hooked a big fish.

He offered the big fish to the same guy but thought he would call a friend first who, after hearing a description, suggested he keep it to determine if it was a record fish.

Christian’s bass rig was equipped with 20 lb. test line and he will also submit information to the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame, which records national records by line class or pound test line according to Mills.

“It tore my reel up,” Christian complained stating that all the gears were stripped by the time the fish was on the bank and then threatened to send it back to the manufacturer with a picture of his state record and ask for a replacement.

The fish’s weight surpassed the 22-year-old record of George Anderson of Cleveland whose fish weighed 25.27 pounds.

UPS store owner Terry Smith said he is never surprised with what comes through his door after the fish was weighed and put back on ice.

As for his record fish Christian said, “I’ll probably give to the guy I gave the other four to. I can’t see getting a drum mounted. As big as he is, my wife would probably kill me.”